A. Technical Field
The present invention relates to gesture sensing devices, and more particularly, to wearable devices for sensing gestures.
B. Background of the Invention
The importance of mobile computing and associated markets is well understood by one of skill in the art. One rapidly growing market within mobile computing relates to wearable computing devices (e.g., watches, glasses) that provide significantly more processing ability and features not previously available on wearable items. These wearable computing devices have miniaturized electronics and improved their power efficiency to enable integrated computing and sensing features. However, the small form factor of these wearable devices makes it difficult for a user to interact or command the devices.
An exemplary wearable device is a smart watch that is a computerized watch and has enhanced functions, similar to those found on today's smart phones, as well as timekeeping. While early models can perform basic tasks, such as calculations, translations, and game-playing, modern smart watches can run mobile applications and/or a mobile operating system and function as portable media players, offering playback of FM radio, audio, and video files to the user via a Bluetooth headset. It is quite likely that the future smart watches will be equipped with other add-ons for additional functions.
A conventional smart watch has a screen that is substantially smaller than the screen of a PDA or a smart phone device. Therefore, it is very difficult for an individual to interface with the watch. The keyboards and touchscreens used on mobile phones to type, select, write or draw are obviously not useable on a smart watch with a substantially smaller footprint. The number of icons usefully displayed and selectable on a small touchscreen are obviously limited compared to a smart phone or PDA. Other conventional wearable devices with small form factors have the similar problem in providing a means for navigating on the screen and doing various motions, such as writing letters, numbers, so on. Therefore, a better solution is needed to provide an improved way of interfacing with wearable devices so that the users may be able to control the wearable devices with convenience.